The End

Well followers, this is my last post.  I am terrible at keeping a diary, so this was my substitute for many years but it does make a few people uncomfortable so to respect their privacy my story ends here.  Wishing all my followers the best ... au revoir!

Big Bunny's Birthday

Today was Big Bunny's Birthday.  She is 6.  As soon as Alanna returned home from Daycare she dressed Big Bunn for the party as well as herself complete with a white princess dress and tiara.

She certainly does love Big Bunny!

Brooke made a wonderful birthday dinner, then the pièce de résistance, a Carrot Cake.  What else for a bunny?

Family Photos

Not a minute too late, Debbie remembered we should take family pictures.  Unfortunately Joe and Joey et al had left but we caught most others for this photo op.

Mom (now 95 years old) with great grand kids and grand kid.

Mom with all the girls at the party.

Mom with all the boys at the party.

Mom with her daughters.

Mom with all her grand and great grand kids (in attendance).

And ... me and my sisters.

The Party

We were so lucky.  My sisters held a party for us.  Well, it was relatives that attended but I counted 21 of us for dinner.  In my books, that is a PARTY!  

Above the kids finally got to see Cousin Kate.  They were so excited and she was so good and played with them the entire party.  And they stuck to her like glue.

Here is Dave with his brother Scott and Scott's wife Maria.

Cousin Joe made it too.  Here he is with Lisa.

Cousin Joe's wife Debbie with Sarah their daughter and Natalie (their daughter-in-law to-be?).

Shaun watches on as Cousin Kate reads to the kids.

There's Joey eating and taking.  It was so good to see everyone.

Snow Fort

Aunt Teri played in the snow with Emerson.  It was not exactly packing snow so she improvised and started to build a snow castle.  Emerson worked right beside her.  A bit later Alanna joined them.  She decided building was not her forté, but decorating was so that kept her busy.  (note some of the snakes went outdoors with him.

Spiders Alive

The Royal Botanical Gardens had an exhibit on ... Spiders Alive!  Not something I would particularly go to myself, but we thought the kids would like it.  They did!  The exhibit wasn't as creepy as I though it would be.  The spiders were all behind glass and (as far as I know) couldn't escape from their enclosures.  

We saw Black Widows and a lot of others too.

They also had the BIGGEST  spider in the world ... the Bird Eater Spider.  Yes it does eat birds and their eggs.  It is a type of tarantula, all big and furry.  

Yuck!

They had floor games for the kids as well.  Above, Alanna is trying to jump as far as a spider. 

The kids each picked out something from the gift shop.  Above you can see what Emerson chose.  Lots of snakes makes him happy.

Fun at Home

We were lucky.  Kayla lives pretty close by and visited often.  The kids had fun with her ... so did I.

Ripley's Aquarium

Our first trip was to take the GO Train to downtown Toronto.  The aquarium was right beside the CN Tower where we tried to eat lunch but we were too late.  The restaurant was closed until dinner time.

But the Aquarium was fun.

Alanna was thrilled to see a Unicorn Fish!

Walls and walls of fish of every kind.

Even fish (including sharks) swimming over our heads!

Here we are just departing the section where they literally swim over our heads.  Through the final section there was a lot of "hands-on" things for the kids to do.  In fact, it was difficult leaving the aquarium as they wanted to try it all. 

We were all hungry and as the CN Tower restaurant was closed (darn it!) we went to the next closest one which was the Rec Room.  This venue was filled with gaming machines which again made it difficult to leave as the kids just wanted to play and play.

It was a long day and a long train ride home although time passed quicker for some.

Toronto Blizzard

We arrived in Toronto in a Blizzard.  There we rented a truck and drove for an hour to Teri and Dave's house.  Aunt Teri had turned her living room into a Kid's Wonderland.  She had a cardboard house which we all coloured, colouring books, crayons and felt pens, a large doll house complete with dolls and furniture, books galore, just to name a FEW.  The kids couldn't have asked for more and were very happy playing for the duration of our stay.

The next morning was beautiful.  Sunny and snowy.  It was their first snowfall of the season.

Emerson grabbed a shovel and went to work.  He made his way around the house and tired when he reached the back deck.

Vancouver Bound, January 18

SR and I left for Vancouver.  There we met Brooke, Emerson and Alanna.  We stayed at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport ... the 

B E S T  hotel in all of Vancouver (in my opinion).  Above is Emerson standing by the view from our wall-to-wall window. And what a view.

I had a good visit with my friend Bev then back to the hotel in the late afternoon to meet up with my family.  The two wee ones stayed with me and the two older ones went off to watch a hockey game.  We all had fun in our own way and had a good sleep, ready to continue our journey the next morning.

Four of us journeyed on to Toronto.  The kids were excellent to travel with.

Red Sky in the Morning

Just went through 5 days of -30 to -38°F .  An interesting note is that from parts of Porter Creek through to Lake LaBarge, there was a power outage at 3AM which lasted in some areas for 9 hours.  At -40 that is a long long time.  Very cold but also very beautiful.  I didn't take photos but believe me, the sky was blue blue blue and the trees were still covered in white hoar frost (I do hope I spelled that correctly!).  Another thing of beauty is our mornings.  The sky is filled with many different hues of red  signalling the start of a new day.  These photos are from my bedroom window.

Weather

Finally, went out late this morning and it was -20°C !  Siri told me it was cold and sleeting (rain mixed with snow) although I don't think at -20 it would be raining.  I went out and what do you know ... it was sunny, clear and cold.  It felt great.

I stopped on my way to take a couple of pictures of the Yukon River.  As you can see, the water is still open.  Right now it is -28°C.  I think the temperatures are finally falling.

Mary Poppins Returns

Saw Mary Poppins Returns on New Year's Day.  My favourite movie reviewer gave it 4.5 Stars out of 5.  He seldom gives a movie such a rating so I was excited to see it.  Now, never having seen all of the original movie, I did know it was a musical (not my favourite type of movie) and I did know the basic Mary Poppins' plot.  I was looking forward to the special effects and the acting.  It is a period movie, set in the early to mid 1900's in London England.  The movie starts off with the lamp lighter (or Leery as I learned from the movie) dousing the lamp flames to begin a new day, in song, of course. If is fun to watch the arrival of Mary Poppins and many of her magical moves.  There were a lot of songs, some of which seemed to go on and on.  I tried to follow the words of the songs, but with the English accents I found it difficult at times to understand them and the musical scenes (in my opinion) could have been shorter.  The movie, made for a young audience I suspect, went on for 2 hours and 10 minutes.  I know two of the younger audience members (6 to 8 years old) were squirming in their seats near the end.  I loved the inclusion of Dick Van Dyke.  That old 92 year old (at the time of filming) still has a lot of entertaining spunk.  And it was fun to see Angela Lansbury in her role as balloon lady.  I am glad I saw it.  I felt it was way too long and I am not certain that 4 years olds would enjoy it all that much although the older - yet still under 10 years old - kids said they enjoyed it.  I give it 3.5 out of 5 Stars.